The Daily Almanac

Tuesday

Today is Tuesday, July 31, the 213th day of 2012. There are 153?days left in the year.

Today is Tuesday, July 31, the 213th day of 2012. There are 153?days left in the year.

Highlights in History

• On July 31, 1942, Oxfam International had its beginnings as the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief was founded in England.

• In 1777, the Marquis de Lafayette, a 19-year-old French nobleman, was made a major-general in the American Continental Army.

• In 1875, the 17th president, Andrew Johnson, died in Carter County, Tenn., at age 66.

• In 1919, Germany’s Weimar Constitution was adopted by the republic’s National Assembly.

• In 1971, Apollo 15 crew members David Scott and James Irwin became the first astronauts to use a lunar rover on the moon.

• In 1972, Democratic vice-presidential candidate Thomas Eagleton withdrew as George McGovern’s running mate in the wake of disclosures that Eagleton had once undergone psychiatric treatment.

• In 1989, a pro-Iranian group in Lebanon released a grisly videotape showing the body of American hostage William R. Higgins, a Marine lieutenant-colonel, dangling from a rope.

• Ten years ago: A bomb blast in a cafeteria at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem killed nine people, including five Americans.

• Five years ago: The Army censured retired Lt. Gen. Philip Kensinger for a “perfect storm of mistakes ” after the 2004 friendly fire death in Afghanistan of Army Ranger Pat Tillman.

• One year ago: Ending a perilous stalemate, President Barack Obama and congressional leaders announced a historic agreement on emergency legislation to avert the nation’s first-ever financial default.

Thought for Today

“Only government can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink and make the combination worthless.” — economist Milton Friedman (born on this date in 1912, died in 2006)

Source: Associated Press

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